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Toys Technology

The Future of Cars According to Toyota 467

Posted by michael from the parallel-parking-made-easy dept.
Paulrothrock writes "HowStuffWorks has an interesting story about Toyota's concept, um, car, the PM. In addition to seating only one person and having its hubless wheels driven by electric motors, it incorporates wireless networking so that drivers could surrender control to another human-driven PM and relax as someone else drives them to work. And it reclines!"
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The Future of Cars According to Toyota More

The Future of Cars According to Toyota

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  • Imagine the road of the future... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ericspinder ( 146776 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:56PM (#9250236) Journal

    (man driving a vintage Excursion hits bump in road) "Damn, what was that!"
    (kid in the back seat) "Dad, I think that you just ran over the last two PMs in that row of 10 that just passed us.

    It looks neat, but I get the impression that it's a coffin with a glass top held up at an angle.

    Different colors display on the door tips, antennas, headlamps, side and rear panels, and rear wheels to indicate what activities are taking place in the PM.
    What's the color of ... (any ideas?)

  • Backseat drivers! (Score:3, Funny)

    by lukewarmfusion ( 726141 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:57PM (#9250242) Homepage Journal
    The last thing I need is for someone else in the car to tell me how to drive, and then demand that I "hand over" control.

    Sheesh.

  • Overheard on #I-95 (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:57PM (#9250244) Homepage
    1337dR1V3r: i h8 this commute
    70y074d00d: ya it sux0rz
    1337dR1V3r: too long
    1337dR1V3r: i got a big ppt prez to give to 54L3z in 30 min
    70y074d00d: haha 54L3z l4m3rz sux
    70y074d00d: 4cc0un71nG rulez
    1337dR1V3r: omfg lag
    70y074d00d: i no
    70y074d00d: im slow too
    70y074d00d: net sux 2day
    70y074d00d: dr1v3r
    70y074d00d: j00 there
    70y074d00d: hello
    *** 1337dR1V3r has left channel
    70y074d00d: oh fuX0r
    *** 70y074d00d has left channel

  • Joke (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mz6 ( 741941 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:57PM (#9250247) Journal
    Anyone remember that old joke that was floating around the Internet, what would happen if the car industry followed the growth of computers? I think that fear has just been realized. Thanks Toyota!

  • A nightmare (Score:4, Funny)

    by The_Mystic_For_Real ( 766020 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:58PM (#9250255)
    Wireless networking and remote administration enabled? I think wardriving just gained a whole new meaning.

    • Re:A nightmare (Score:5, Funny)

      by Adriax ( 746043 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:04PM (#9250337)
      Laptops, wireless cards, steering wheel joysticks, and some friends.

      Screw those little RC toys. Snag control of cars as they drive past and have races around the block!

    • Re:A nightmare (Score:5, Funny)

      by madgeorge ( 632496 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:12PM (#9250444)
      Cut me off, and I'll hack your car and steer you into a ditch. But something tells me in Texas we'll still figure out how to mount a gun rack.

    • Re:A nightmare (Score:3, Interesting)

      by novakane007 ( 154885 )
      On top of being hacked I wonder how accurate this is? How does it follow? by 'retracing' the wheels of the car ahead of it? I sure hope it's accurate! 2 things could happen, the car could hit an rock and set it slightly off course. The co-ordinates that the car ahead relay would no longer be totally accurate and the car may start turning at the wrong time! This reminds me of my Omnibot robot. I could program him to follow a certain track and do certain actions, but I had to place him exactly where he was

  • Already have those? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:58PM (#9250258)
    I had one of these when I was a kid! Except control wasn't wireless, it was manual. Oh yeah...and we called it a "stroller."
  • Would you trust to have someone else drive you to work? I sure wouldn't. Especially if they do that for a living.

    If an accident were to happen; You wouldn't have been in any kind of control.

    This wouldn't be a bad thing for all those drunks who try to drive home though.

    That kind of technology has some major pros and cons.

    • Re:Would you trust? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So you have NEVER ridden as a passenger in someone elses car?!?!?

    • Re:Would you trust? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Umm. Ever hear of a "taxi"?

      • The major difference is the other person currently is in the car with you. The consequences fall on them too.

        With someone else not in the car they don't have the consequences if there is an accident. To them it's like game over on a console.

        • Re:Would you trust? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by the_mad_poster ( 640772 ) <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:32PM (#9250667) Homepage Journal

          To them it's like game over on a console.

          That's EXACTLY what came to mind when I read that. Imagine - you're steering this car through a little 3d raceway. The ability for abuse is mind boggling, but, what's worse, is it sort of removes the element of threat and leaves the "driver" in a more detached position. When you drive your own vehicle, your skin is on the line. When someone else drives your vehicle, they don't have that issue.

          I could see some idiot putting the car on cruise control remotely (either through poor design or as a hack to the vehicle/controller) and getting up to go get a pepsi or a beer or something.... just not a good situation.

          • Re:Would you trust? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Sparr0 ( 451780 )
            Not only did you not RTFA, you didnt even RTFSummaryOnSlashdot. The driver will not be an arbitrary 'elsewhere', they will be in *ANOTHER PM*, most likely directly in front of you. Havent you ever been driving and though 'gee, ive been behind this same car for the last 6 hours, why cant they just pull me?' This is a concept already being tested in cargo transportation, where the lead truck in a convoy controls the entire train of vehicles behind it.

  • Two Words (Score:5, Funny)

    by mehaiku ( 754091 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:00PM (#9250281) Homepage
    Steve Urkel
  • ...so that drivers could surrender control to another human-driven PM and relax as someone else drives them to work.

    This takes the concept in everquest of mob/newb training to a whole 'nother level....

  • It could improve resource usage (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YankeeInExile ( 577704 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:01PM (#9250292) Homepage Journal

    The fundamental problem with the car-centric society of my homeland is: Nearly pessimum resource utilization at every step of the way.

    First, I assume for the moment that we are not going to undo fifty years of urban planning overnight, and that private cars (or car-like transporters) are going to be a sine qua non for the time being.

    Every day, a commuter needs to get himself and his briefcase from domicile to place-of-employ. Once a week, the entire family unit wants to travel together to Funfunparkland. Once a month you need to carry a SUV-full of groceries home from the Megalomart.

    Having one least-common-denominator vehicle for all of these purposes (e.g. the Suburban Assault Vehicle), is a poor use of resources - to use some tortured computer analogy, it is as if you burn a DVD-R with three words on it, every time you want to use a post-it.

    I think something like the Toyota PM would be more readily accepted by commuters if there were in place a more economically feasible way to acquire a larger vehicle for ad-hoc short-term missions. Something like, but not exactly like, the current rental market.

    When I lived in Mountain View, CA - there was "Rent A Heap, Cheap" that had - well - cheap heaps of car ... They would rent you a mid-80s station wagon for something like 25 bucks a day, unlimited mileage (or nearly unlimited) including tax and insurance. Commuting via motorcycle, I was easily able to save enough in operating-cost, fixed cost, and depreciation to rent the wagon for those once-in-a-while times when having something bigger than a motorcycle was needed.

    The saddest part with Toyota's gadget: It appears too much a toy, and they will have terrible image problems. The /. collective-consciousnless will call it 'gay'. (Not to mention the risks involved with someone 0wn3ring your car and driving you off a cliff!)

    • Re:It could improve resource usage (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The main problem I have with this car is the same reason I don't ride my motorcycle any more: 3000+ lb vehicles.

      It would be fine if every single person on the road had a bike or one of these things, but with 99% of vehicles on the road today being 3000+ lb monsters, I don't want to be anywhere near them.

    • Re:It could improve resource usage (Score:4, Interesting)

      by einer ( 459199 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:18PM (#9250519) Journal
      The /. collective-consciousnless will call it 'gay'. (Not to mention the risks involved with someone 0wn3ring your car and driving you off a cliff!)

      Automotive sexual orientation aside, I'd really like to know how they plan on preventing someone from making your car do something you don't want it to. I'm sure a manual override is a part of the plan, but if a passenger in my car were to serve my wheel on I-80, I imagine it would be a fairly terminal action, one which I couldn't recover from.

      Without additional ifrastructure (collision detection, road orientation and speed monitoring, etc), I don't see how this will work. It's a neat problem.

      The post it note analogy was pretty spot on explanation of a problem most people never think about (assuming I'm most people).
    • The jury is still out about whether this business model can be profitable in the long run, but Zipcar [zipcar.com] and Flexcar [flexcar.com] are selling easy access to loaner cars for people who only need wheels a few times a month.

      Right now, they're not offering large vehicles to owners of small vehicles. They're offering small vehicles to people who primarily use public transportation -- or to single-car families who occasionally need a second vehicle. But if they succeed, it makes sense that they would branch out into a wider
    • Having one least-common-denominator vehicle for all of these purposes (e.g. the Suburban Assault Vehicle), is a poor use of resources - to use some tortured computer analogy, it is as if you burn a DVD-R with three words on it, every time you want to use a post-it.

      While that sounds find in theory, the reality is different. Your assuming a few things that don't always hold true.

      First, the person has the $$$ to have more than one vehicle, so he is able to choose which one he uses based on the activity abo

  • ....Right.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DiscordOfFive ( 778099 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:01PM (#9250296) Journal
    Pardon me, but that's bullshit. No one I know would want a one-passenger car. I mean, yeah, that might be nice for the commute to and from work. But what about the weekends? How are you gonna go to a rave and take 10 people with you in that thing? I think caravans were a little 19th century.

    And what about people with kids? Are they gonna come out with a "follower" model? And how exactly is one gonna haul groceries home?

    This will be great for those guys who only go to the office, then home to surf the net till it's time to go to work again. But people with lives and friends are gonna keep driving multi-passenger vehicles. Especially in rural areas, where we don't have great things like cabs and subways.

    • Re:....Right.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fiannaFailMan ( 702447 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:13PM (#9250462) Journal
      I dunno about you, but I get the distinct impression that this thing isn't designed for hauling a boatload of kids to soccer practice. What you're saying is a bit like complaining that a dinghy isn't much use for shipping 40,000 tonnes of containerised freight from Okaland to Taipai.

      • Re:....Right.... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Zathrus ( 232140 )
        I dunno about you, but I get the distinct impression that this thing isn't designed for hauling a boatload of kids to soccer practice.

        Who said anything about a boatload?

        I have a 3 month old daughter. How, exactly, am I supposed to get her anywhere if I had a single-seater car? An infant seat is required by law in most (all?) states and European countries, and a child seat once they grow out of that. Some states (I don't know about EU countries) are now requiring booster seats up to the age of 8 (or XX lb

    • Re:....Right.... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by stephenisu ( 580105 )
      I would gladly own a single person commuter with 4 wheels. I would join a carshare for the other requirements. A 800lbs one seater would be great. I only wish I could ride a motorcycle on ice...

    • Re:....Right.... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by IIEFreeMan ( 450812 )
      I thought about this idea (one passenger car with a slave mode) a lot some time ago.

      I think the whole point is that everybody could have such a vehicle (it will have to be cheap enough). So for kids you will put the vehicle in slave mode only and it will follow the car of one of the parents until they have their driving license.

    • Re:....Right.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by anthonyclark ( 17109 )
      um. Who said that it would be written in stone, mandated by law and enforced by GIANT KILLER ROBOTS that you may only own one car and that car must be this new toyota?

      Imagine this scenario: Rent the PM from an agency, maybe one that your employer has a contract with. Every morning at a specified time (or not, if you want to be flexible) a PM arrives at your door. You hop in and relax as you're driven to work. If you need to travel somewhere during lunch then you can last-minute-rent a PM to get there.

    • Re:....Right.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gnu-generation-one ( 717590 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:20PM (#9250543) Homepage
      "No one I know would want a one-passenger car. And how exactly is one gonna haul groceries home?"

      Well, I've just got back from the supermarket on a bicycle with groceries. Of course, shopping more frequently than once per month helps (means you get fresh food too), and living 100 yds away from the supermarket (and 5 miles from work) is probably something worth considering when you get your next job and/or house.

      Or you could just get a big car. Fuck it, who needs to live in the same city as your office anyway?

    • Re:....Right.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:28PM (#9250621)
      If you look, in most 2 car families, one car is used solely to transport one person to work and back. That's all. It gets used 1-2 hours a day commuting, and the rest of the time it sits in the driveway or the parking lot at work.

      Replace THAT car with something else.
      Bike, bus, carpool, this Toyota thingie. Why a family needs/wants TWO Canyonero's is beyond me.

    • WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Azureflare ( 645778 )
      Raves? There are some people who don't go to raves, because we think taking drugs and listening to pounding monotonous music is boring (And childish). Some people who are single, and don't have noisy, annoying kids to drive around. Some of us like our solitude.

      Maybe not a 1 seater, but a 2 seater would be my optimum car. I'm sure there are others who would be fine driving around in a one seater most of the time.

      Here we see an example of the idea that you can't automatically assume a product will fail

    • Re:....Right.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Matey-O ( 518004 )
      aaaah, but they said the same things about the Segway(tm)

    • It's an "and" car. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:42PM (#9250808)
      The idea is that you have a normal car *and* one of these. Much like the Smart cars we have in Europe. I have to say I don't see the advantage. You're still going to get stuck in traffic. I do think they should install short range radio in all cars as standard though so that you can shout at the twats in front of you.

      Rather than a big car and a small car I have a car and a motorcycle. Use the bike to commute, swish through traffic and use the car for carrying stuff and longer ranges.

      A Solectria Sunrise would be a much better vehicle to be aiming at:

      http://www.evuk.co.uk/hotwires/rawstuff/art24.ht ml

      Yeah... 1997... It can actually do 375 miles on a single charge.

    • Re:....Right.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kirkjobsluder ( 520465 ) <kirk AT jobsluder DOT net> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:49PM (#9250900) Homepage
      Um, who the heck mods this up insightful?

      It's a concept car!

      The only reason anybody created this thing is to attract the media magpies who go "ohh, shiny, ohh, innovative, ohh nifty". They grab the press packet, plagarize, rewriwe, and publish the press release (along with the included press photo) with "look at what Toyota is doing thinking outside of the box!"

      Then after the season the concept is put to the scrap heap while they go back to making 2-door compacts and sedans.

      This happens over and over again. Someone posts a link to an article about a concept car, and then everyone here takes it too seriously, "ohh, that would never work, because..."

      It's a concept car! It is only eye candy to create buzz and you just bought it, hook line and sinker.

  • So... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Wiggin ( 97119 )
    Does it turn into a cannoli [imdb.com]?

  • We could call it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:01PM (#9250305)
    > it incorporates wireless networking so that
    > drivers could surrender control to another
    > human-driven PM and relax as someone else drives
    > them to work. And it reclines!

    All that remains is to hook these units together and run them on fixed guideways. Let's see - need a new word for that - how about..... "Train". Yeah, that sounds funky and new!

    sPh

  • Neat... (Score:5, Funny)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:01PM (#9250306)
    Another job that can be done from home, taxi driver.

    Never thought i'd see the day...

    At least cabbies can stop showeri.... wait a minute..
    • Another job that can be done from home, taxi driver. Woohoo! We can save lots of cash outsourcing those work from home cab drivers overseas.

      Wait a minute...

      The cab drivers can work from "homeland"

    • Great, now the taxi drivers don't even have to come to this country to drive like shit, just a sat link and a solar panel and they're "off to the races"...
  • power wheels make 'em go!

  • Uh... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:02PM (#9250316) Homepage Journal

    So how do I get my two toddlers to the grocery store?

    What breakfast food does this most resemble: Hummer IV meets PM?

    What about poor wireless reception or active radio jamming?

    To start it, do you pull it back in your driveway until the spring catches?

    • Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gfxguy ( 98788 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:58PM (#9251011)
      Well, sorry I picked on you to start debating, but I've seen so many of these shortsighted posts I needed to answer.

      Obviously this car is not to bring your two kids anywhere.

      From the Georgia DOT [state.ga.us]:
      Every year, Atlanta-area traffic grows by 20 to 40 percent over the previous year. And, according to figures from the Georgia DOT, at least 88 percent of metro commuters are alone in their cars.


      Metro Atlanta commuters collectively travel an estimated 112 million miles daily, with (AFAIR) a 50 mile round trip average. That's a guestimated 2.4 million commuters. 88% alone in their cars... that's over 2.1 million solo commuters.

      That's hundreds of thousands of vehicles daily on each of the major interstates.

      Imagine you replace 2 of the four to 7 lanes (depending on which of the interstates and at which part) with lanes for this vehicle... each current lane would be wide enough to handle more than one of these vehicles in width, so you could replace, for example, 2 lanes with three for this kind of vehicle.

      Sound ridiculous? People use motorcycles, some places have motorcycle lanes. We have HOV lanes. Why would something like this be so far fetched?

      And while I realize it might be funny to talk about being hacked or having bad reception, just because a car could be remotely controled doesn't mean is has to be.

      By separating these vehicles from the rest of traffic, you are minimizing the danger.

      And you would still have your precious SUV, big enough to carry eight passengers while towing a house, so that you could take your two toddlers to the supermarket.

  • Fark (Score:3, Funny)

    by OglinTatas ( 710589 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:03PM (#9250318)
    Photoshop this Toyota PM. Difficulty: no baby strollers.
  • This looks like another concept car that will never see the light of day to me. It's more like a motorcycle than a car actually, and has many of the same drawbacks:
    1. The drivers legs are used as the front bumper
    2. Virtually no cargo room
    3. Can't bring the kids along, since they won't be allowed to even sit in your PM until they get a drivers license
    4. I'm not about to let some other jerk drive for me. What if he cuts someone off and doesn't leave enough room for me?
    5. It's top heavy (although it can recline, alleviating this problem somewhat)
    This is just another concept car that will never see the light of day, at least not in it's current form.
    • The drivers legs are used as the front bumper

      Driving is dangerous. You're only safer in a SUV if you hit a little car. Hit something stationary or another SUV and the energies involved are much higher. Nevermind stopping distance and handling. We'd all be safer if drivers were a little more aware of their mortality.

      Virtually no cargo room

      A large percentage of the time, I have virtually no cargo. Like everyone else.

      Can't bring the kids along, since they won't be allowed to even sit in your PM until

    • Re:Concept cars are like college programming proje (Score:5, Funny)

      by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @03:12PM (#9251194) Journal

      The drivers legs are used as the front bumper


      Maybe people will start driving a bit more carefully if this is the case. ABS, seatbelts, airbags - I bet the one thing that'd improve road safety more than any of those is a 6-inch spike sticking out the steering wheel towards the driver!

  • Free advertizing (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kippy ( 416183 )
    Since when did HowStuffWorks become a showcase for the corporate world? Shouldn't it be more about general concepts like hybrid cars as opposed to say, the Toyoda model specifically.

  • What's worse than drivers with cellphones? (Score:3, Funny)

    by IvyMike ( 178408 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:03PM (#9250325)
    When people start driving cars that look like a giant cellphone.
  • all it needs is a bar behind it and you could have someone on rollerblades push you to work as if you were a 2 yearold.

    Better yet, in New York City where those people who walk 10 to 15 dogs at a time could use the remote control to walk 10 to 15 kids at a time.
  • and it is small, depressing and underpowered.

    All I want is sexbots and a virtual replacement for my shitty life. Is this too much to ask?

  • with very little content on each page sure can't handle a heavy load. Hate it when sites do that for advertising revenue.

    But I have nothing to complain about...howstuffworks is one of my favorite sites - and it's free.

  • That box looks like a pancake waiting to happen. I wonder how much thought Toyota engineers put into safety w/ a baby buggy looking car like that.

  • great... (Score:3, Funny)

    by nanojath ( 265940 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:06PM (#9250364) Homepage Journal
    Another indignity to be heaped on the Administrative Assistant... "Nanojath, I really need to work on this report, so you better log in and drive me to work..." Then again, the trust might not extend that far... to quote Homer Simpson, "Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American Dream?"


    So, if I crash someone's car driving it remotely, am I liable? Does my insurance go up? Will hackers be the wireless car thieves of the future?

  • And when people mistake you for a giant Aibo? (Score:3, Funny)

    by screwballicus ( 313964 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:07PM (#9250375)
    And what do you do when people mistake you for a giant Aibo?

    Have you PM mount their car and give the chassis a little dry-hump?

  • Neat toy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:07PM (#9250376)
    Neat idea, but I'd hate to even consider driving one of these on the highways. A normal car loses when it has an arguement with an 18-wheeler. I imagine this thing would lose just as badly if it encountered a normal car.

    That said, the autopilot mode I like. Though it would be better if it could drive autonomously, rather than surrendering control to someone else (who's as likely to fall asleep at the wheel as I am). Course, the networking would have to be designed so that it was proof against some random attack. Giving up control of my car to someone else is one thing, having him TAKE control against my will is "right out".

    And it changes colours to indicate what is going on inside! I wonder what colour it turns if you're making out?

    • Re:Neat toy (Score:3, Funny)

      by Hooptie ( 10094 )
      Since it is a single passenger car, with whom would you be making out?

      Be careful, you could go blind...

      Hooptie

  • not only do cars carry people from place to place, a large percentage of us carry lots of stuff in our cars with us. I carry a roadside kit, my EMT bag, a sleeping bag, a few maps, my laptop and assorted computer accessories, and a bag with some toiletries and a spare change of clothes, basically wherever I go. (college kids, you never know where we'll end up sleeping on any given night ^^). This thing, while schnazzy, is apparently lacking anything remotely resembling "cargo space". Hell, where am i su

  • Jebus H. Christmas!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:10PM (#9250407) Journal
    In addition to seating only one person and having its hubless wheels driven by electric motors, it incorporates wireless networking so that drivers could surrender control to another human-driven PM and relax as someone else drives them to work. And it reclines!

    And what else seats only one person, reclines, and is driven by someone else? Why, you guessed it... it's the new joint venture between Toyota and Apple... the iStroller [howstuffworks.com].
  • I've made some dire predictions in my life, but I never went so low as to predict motor vehicles based on the Sony AIBO platform.

  • Maybe BMW can go back to three-cars, too (Score:4, Informative)

    by stinkyfingers ( 588428 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:10PM (#9250414)
    Old-School [bmwworld.com]

  • Joysticks!?! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BobBonobobo ( 455030 )
    What's with all the talk of joysticks in next-gen concept cars? A normal steering wheel gives great flexibility: great detail control, and you can still whip out a sharp turn if you need to.

    Imagine a sneeze jerking you into the neighboring car.

    Furthermore, how dumb is it to replace gas/brake pedals w/ another joystick!?! Now you NEED 2 hands to drive! How are you going to mess with the radio or eat your Big Mac or call your mom?
  • Judging from the horrific comments that everyone on /. has about this new product, and how right the /. community has been about products.. (ipod mini comes to mind). This will make Toyota billions!

  • LED Technology? (Score:3, Funny)

    by thadman08 ( 732965 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:14PM (#9250473) Homepage
    "When PMs are communicating with other PMs, LED technology is employed to change the color of the vehicle to indicate "emotions" and situations. Different colors display on the door tips, antennas, headlamps, side and rear panels, and rear wheels to indicate what activities are taking place in the PM."

    Good thing it's a single seater!

  • The Lohner-Porsche Electric Car (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:14PM (#9250475) Homepage
    The Lohner-Porsche Electric Car [porsche.com], unveiled in 1900 at the Paris Expo, was an electric car with a motors-in-the-hubs design. 1900!

  • In the future energy is unlimited, obviously. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jtheletter ( 686279 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:16PM (#9250494)
    Brilliant, this is perfect. A vehicle that can only ever drive one person around. Obviously in Toyota's vision of the future there are unlimited energy reserves, it's cheap and widely available, and no one has any friends.

    What is the point of a one person transport? There isn't even room for an appreciable amount of luggage. If this is only to be used for personal commuting with few to none personal items, say to and from the office, then this person should be using the hyper efficient and comforatble mass transit system in place in the future. Oh that's right, there won't be one because companies are still designing products like this for the highest level of society where privilege and money rule and fuck-all to the environment and anyone who can't afford a person transport pod.

    I'm not a tree-hugging hippie, but this is redeiculous. How about this for a concept car - one that actually gets more than 50 miles per gallon - that addresses today's problems in the real world where people need to haul stuff and other people around on a budget and where energy is limited.

    • What is the point of a one person transport?

      The same as most cars on the morning commute now. To get one person from home to work. This does it cheaper and smaller.

      Think if your company didn't have to buy that bigass parking lot along with the building? hmmm.....less operating overhead, more profits, maybe even a raise for you.

  • PM is an acronym (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 ( 718736 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:19PM (#9250532)
    for Post Mortem, cuz this thing will be dead on arrival

  • Not really for the US market (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cft_128 ( 650084 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:26PM (#9250610)
    This car really looks to be targeted at the Asian/Euro market. This would be feasible for metropolitan commutes where large vehicles are rarer and high speed collisions are not as frequent. Japan and Europe both have tiny cars like the smart car [646industries.com]in them already, this is not a giant leap for them.

    US cities like San Francisco and New York (Manhattan) with high population densities and no parking this might work but does have the fruity image problem. This wold make crossing town and finding parking quite a bit easier for a daily commuter.

    The 'high speed mode' is a bit baffling to me, i suspect that is just the concept car thing of "We can do it, thought it was cool so threw it in". Practically I doubt it could work in a mixed use expressway safely.

  • more info from Toyota (Score:3, Informative)

    by NaturePhotog ( 317732 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:29PM (#9250628) Homepage
    Since HSW is grinding to a halt and no longer serving up images, you can see pics of the rolling coffin and more info from Toyota here [toyota.com].

  • It's just not safe (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Fiz Ocelot ( 642698 ) <baelzharon@gmailQUOTE.com minus punct> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:35PM (#9250708)
    With all of the huge vehicles so common today, that thing is simply unsafe in the worst possible way.

    I guess I tend to lean more toward having a larger vehicle these days because I know someone who a year ago would be dead if they were not driving the large pickup truck they were in...when someone hit them head on at 65mph. Luckily they only nearly died, and can barely walk today.

    As long as all of the large vehicles are still popular, a tiny thing like that simply would not sell.

  • A great idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jmichaelg ( 148257 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @02:48PM (#9250886) Journal
    Toyota has taken Berkeley's PATH [berkeley.edu] idea and done it one better. PATH requires that highways be modified to accomodate the computer controlled lead car. Toyota's idea does away with needing special highways and leaves the lead driver with the driving chore. It's not a bad tradeoff in that you just need two cars with the technology for the idea to work which will make adoption that much faster. No need to wait for cash-strapped governmental agencies to realize this is a good idea - you just do it. I don't know how many times I've been stuck in traffic thinking that I've wanted my car just to do what the car ahead of me is doing so I can do something else. As for the lead driver, whenever he's had enough, he can peel off and let someone else take on the chore - just like geese dynamically choose who will lead the formation.

    Some key benefits to the idea of letting one person drive a gaggle of cars are

    1. You can design the cars to densely tailgate each other to take advantage of slipstreaming. That buys you significant gains in gas mileage since most of a car's power at highway speeds is spent just moving air out of the way.
    2. Cars can move at much higher speeds since human reaction times are removed from the chain. Right now, if you're in a line 100 cars long, it takes at least 50 seconds from the time the first car in line moves before the 100th car gets moving. With this technology, when the first car moves, all the cars move. When the first car stops, all the cars stop.
    3. It allows for self-assembling trains. Fixed rail is well, fixed. Cars go wherever anyone wants to go when they want to go. By allowing one person to drive, and everyone else to follow, you'll have long strings of cars (just like you have train cars) that can peel off when they wish and can join when they wish. You get most of the efficiency of trains without having to coerce people into living in certain areas or travel to certain destinations.
    This incarnation of Toyota's may not make it to market but, with tort reform, some variation of this tech is going to happen. The advantages are just too great for it not to happen.

    • Re:A great idea (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Xeger ( 20906 )
      The biggest problem I see with the lead-driver approach is: how does a follower gracefully handle a sudden departure of the lead car from his leadership role?

      Let's say that John Q. Asshole is driving 75 down the interstate, leading a chain of PMs. John decides, abruptly, that he wants to stop for a coffee at a filling station. Without signalling that he no longer wants to lead, he swerves across four lanes of traffic and barely makes it onto an offramp without killing himself. How will the followers react

  • BMW C1 enclosed scooter much better solution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cosmo99 ( 157757 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @03:07PM (#9251131)
    The worse thing about cars is not the pollution, the noise, the fossil fuel dilemna, not even the horrific fatal operator error rate. Its the space they take up. The space required for everyone to park, drive, and park again works against all other modes of transportation by making things farther apart and covers everything in between with asphalt.

    That said, an enclosed scooter like the BMW C1 [bmw-c1.com] makes much more sense than the four-wheeled PM because you can operate it in a narrow vehicle lane and park in a motorcycle space. With anti-lock brakes, roll cage, and harness, and a superfluous helmet required in some jurisdictions, its no rolling coffin. And you can buy it now.

  • So does this mean (Score:3, Funny)

    by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @05:45PM (#9253142)
    That I can now offshore my driving?

  • Corbin Sparrow? (Score:3, Informative)

    by nigelc ( 528573 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @06:02PM (#9253300) Homepage
    Looks a lot like the Corbin Sparrow, which was billed as an enclosed motorcycle rather than a single-seater car,

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